Every 9½ minutes someone in the U.S. is infected with HIV. That’s the message behind a national campaign that was announced today by officials from the White House is a new five-year national communication campaign that will highlight this alarming statistic and attempt to combat complacency about the HIV/AIDS crisis in the United States. The campaign is using both traditional channels (e.g., radio and transit ads) and new media tools (e.g., widgets, Web badges, online videos, Twitter, blogs, social networking sites) to reach a broad audience and to target at-risk populations.

Kevin Fenton, M.D., Director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention explained: “Reducing the disproportionate toll of HIV in Black communities is one of CDC’s top domestic HIV-prevention priorities, and African American leaders have long played an essential role in this fight.” Fenton also said “This new initiative will further harness the collective strength of some of the nation’s leading African American organizations to reach directly into the communities they serve with critical, life-saving information.”To harness that collective strength, this campaign is using new media tools to spread the message. We’ll blog about this campaign in the future, to explore how our colleagues are using new media and to get a sense of how effective those tools are. Help us share this important message! Visit the campaign’s website at www.nineandahalfminutes.orgExit Disclaimer.